Quarantine

        Claire lay in her hospital bed, trying to find something to occupy her mind. She had recently returned to North Carolina after doing a great deal of volunteer work in Liberia for the past two months. She hadn’t even been aware of the paranoia about everything even vaguely related to Ebola that had been sweeping the nation until she had arrived back in the US last Tuesday.

        Getting access to any kind of international news in Africa would have been difficult even if it weren’t for the fact that she had been completely occupied with her volunteer work the entire time she was there. Claire still felt completely drained even after having an entire week with little else to do besides sit in this bed and relax.

        For the first couple of days, Claire had managed to keep her boredom at bay. All of the doctors and nurses hung on to her every word as she told them stories about her time in Liberia. They wanted to know about absolutely everything: the food, the wildlife, the people. It had been nice to share her experiences with such an attentive audience despite the fact that they probably just wanted to keep Claire’s mind off of being stuck in this room.

        There was only so much they could tell them though. Once she had exhausted that particular topic, nothing else seemed quite as interesting to those around her. The usual topics that Claire discussed with her regular doctors were probably too mundane for these folks; working in the quarantine section must make their lives much more exciting than most. 

        After that all too brief window of pleasantness, Claire didn’t have much to occupy her besides the small TV in her room. The news was just as ridiculous as always; only the weather forecast seemed the least bit reasonable. Just watching the top stories gave her a headache. Her throat was annoying enough by itself since it felt like someone had shoved the entire Sahara down it, possibly due to the powerful urge to yell at the people on TV.

        The things that passed for news these days were weird at best and downright embarrassing at worst. Seriously, since when did a single show getting cancelled deserve such a huge amount of time dedicated to screaming about it? They weren’t even discussing it like well mannered adults. Their arguments sounded a lot like the typical spats you’d hear between first graders during recess.

        The other channels were little better. Claire had dedicated the last two months to improving the lives of others. The shallowness shown by the vast majority of people on TV was absolutely sickening to her. There were too many offenders for Claire to count; however, there were a few groups in particular that took the cake. In fact, they didn’t just take the cake; they took the entire stinking bakery since they were so overwhelmingly self absorbed and selfish. Who were these amazingly infuriating people? The Real Housewives of pretty much anywhere. Granted, not all of them displayed these negative traits. The one thing that all of them possessed that drove Claire insane was copious amounts of money.

        Instead of focussing on more humble worn who would be much more relatable to the average housewife, the shows centered around these ladies chose to focus on people with sickening amounts of money. It didn’t seem right to fatten the wallets of these fortunate women while there were far more interesting families out there who slipped clear under the radar of all TV networks. This especially bothered Claire now that she had witnessed first hand some of the issues that people in other parts of the world faced.

        During her time in Liberia, Claire had worked with a team of people to improve a local school. Others members of the team had focused on getting better school supplies, running water, and that sort of thing. Claire’s job seemed much less vital in comparison, yet she was proud of what she had accomplished. She had primarily focused on improving the overall learning environment. She had done everything from showing teachers how to better engage the children to decorating the classrooms to make them look more welcoming.

        Improvements such as these would hopefully lead to the children coming away with a more fulfilling education. The effects of these improvements wouldn’t be obvious until the children were much older. Nonetheless, Claire was proud to have made a difference in the lives of dozens of children. She had helped teach them, played with them, and spent so much time with them that they felt like family to her now.

        Surrounded by lavender colored walls that were intended to be soothing, Claire couldn’t stop herself from becoming incredibly irritated despite her peaceful environment. The only reason she had returned to this country so early was because the program had run into monetary issues. She shouldn’t be laying idly in this hospital room; she should be doing her best to raise more funding. 

        The more she thought about how luxurious the often overlooked clean water and easily accessible food in the US were in comparison to the conditions in Liberia, the more frustrated Claire became. The children she had worked with were lucky if they got to eat any kind of meat besides the fruit bats that were so numerous in the area. Claire had eaten some of those herself while she was there; she could attest to the fact that they didn’t provide the nutrition that these borderline emaciated children desperately needed. 

        Her head pounded fiercely and goosebumps rose like miniature mountains along her limbs. All of this stress must be giving her a bit of a fever. Claire still thought that she was far more likely to die because of this crippling anxiety about the children she had worked with for so long than Ebola. After all, people only transmitted it to each other through bodily fluids. 

        Her doubts continued despite the concerned looking man in medical scrubs wearing a mask over his mouth and nose who entered the room and informed her that she would need to be further isolated from everyone until a round of tests were completed on various samples from her body. What Clair neglected to consider was that Ebola could be transmitted by more than just people; it could also be contracted when a person consumed an infected fruit bat.